David Kicklighter was a quiet soul in a couple of ways. From the time he was a kid he just wasn’t the type of person to need to say anything, unless if it most definitely had to be said. He was a good, if quiet student at a small community college in the Midwest where he studied metal-working, and he eventually found steady work as a freelance construction worker. He was good at what he did, and whenever he was hired he always impressed the people he was working with, even if he hardly said much to them.
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David has a ghost orphan living inside of him, which gives him a variety of enhanced physical abilities, such as increased speed, strength and agility, as well as limited flight capabilities. The spirit also affords him the power to project ghostly energy from his mouth.
When he was 21 he attended his sister’s wedding in Platinum City, and was introduced to a school teacher named Simone. She was a lot more outspoken than he was, but her passionate, yet measured demeanor made her extremely attractive in his eyes. Of course, he never said as much to her. She was the one who spoke up, and suggested they exchange info and stay in touch. He happily obliged, and was relieved he didn’t have to make the first move. Less than a year later Simone proposed to David, and the two of them got married and moved into a nice Platinum City apartment. They had a son, Zane, and for about 13 years they lived a pretty normal life, as David continued to take construction jobs, and Simone made a name for herself as a teacher who was extremely active in the lives and holistic education of her children, as well as the administrative processes of the education system in Platinum City overall.
Then one night, David Kicklighter and his wife were visited by a pair of wandering spirits called ghost orphans. The wraiths phantom-fused with David and Simone’s souls, and took residence inside their bodies and consciousnesses. The phantom-fusion offered the couple a number of powers, such as enhanced speed and strength, as well as astral energy projection. Simone’s ghost orphan also enhanced her tenacity as an advocate for her students. David’s orphan, however, was much more reticent, and despite the physical enhancements that made him even better at his job, he remained a mostly soft-spoken guy.
For the next couple of years, Simone, David and Zane continued to go on with life, even finding a nice house in a Platinum City suburban area. One night, however, their home was visited by evil entities known as reapers. The reapers had been sent from hell to capture the ghost orphans and bring them into the afterlife they’d not been able to obtain since their creation many centuries ago. It was an afterlife this particular pair of wraiths wanted no part of. The reapers were led by Alva Devine, and she was not in the habit of taking no for an answer. She and her cohorts brandished their ghost-blades and attacked the family. Simone and David unleashed the full extent of the powers the spirits inside of them granted, and fought back. David used a pair of pickaxes to defend himself, and also found that he could project astral energy from his mouth.
The battle was intense! But the stakes were raised even further when a trio of swordsman from a noble group of assassins called The Veil showed up, and inserted themselves into the mix. Led by Disa Philadelphia, The Veil had descended from the bloodlines of seven holy warriors who’d been tasked with hunting down ghost orphans and capturing them, with the goal of ushering them into final resting places in a heavenly afterlife.
These two ghost orphans, however, had no desire to relinquish their earthly immortality to The Veil, either. And so David and his wife found themselves fighting against both sides of eternity. It was somewhat of an advantage for the Kicklighters that the reapers and The Veil also hated each other. Additionally, the couple’s now teenage son had natural hyper-abilities of his own – specifically pyrokinesis. The family, however, would fail to escape.
First, David was forced to witness his wife Simone fall under Alva Devine’s blade. He watched as the ghost orphan rose from her lifeless body, then disappear into a dark afterlife. Moments later, the exhausted widower was disarmed and brought to his knees by the the Veil assassin Valerie Philadelphia. He begged to keep his life for the sake of his son Zane. The ghost orphan, however, could not be captured without the sacrifice of the host it had chosen; additionally, Valerie and the hunters could not risk allowing a ghost orphan to continue existing in the natural world, no matter how well-intentioned or mild mannered they proved to be.
Valerie slayed David with her living-blade, causing a blinding flash of purple light and a powerful gust of wind, as the ghost orphan rose from his body and began its journey toward a heavenly afterlife.